Whicker: Cardinals should be Dodgers' role model

The difference between a good team and a good organization was defined Friday night by the Cardinals' Matt Carpenter, with foul after foul after foul.

Carpenter is the Cardinals' second baseman, a place he had hardly played before spring training. At 27, he had never played fulltime in the majors before.

Before that he was a senior star at TCU, because he missed his junior year with Tommy John surgery.

Before that he was 40 pounds overweight.

The Cardinals won the World Series in 2011. Their 2013 team has five different everyday starters, four homegrown, including Carpenter.

The 13th-round draft choice led the National League in hits and runs this year, and Friday he kept slapping away Clayton Kershaw's best efforts until he found something he could pull for a double. The 9-0 rout began there, and now St. Louis is in its fourth World Series in the past 10 seasons.

The Cardinals have gotten into the postseason 10 of 14 times in this century, with 13 winning records.

When Tony La Russa retired, they did not cast their nets for a managerial star but promoted ex-catcher Mike Matheny, who had been a minor league instructor.

When they lost first baseman Allen Craig, who had a .448 average with men in scoring position, and closer Jason Motte, they just reached below. They drew upon a 260-pound first baseman from Slippery Rock, a 23rd-round pick named Matt Adams whom the players nicknamed “Big City,” and Trevor Rosenthal, a 21st-round pick from a Kansas junior college who was converted from shortstop and then from a starter, primarily because he can throw 100 mph.

When the Dodgers grow up, maybe they can become the Cardinals.

They certainly have every opportunity. Their president, Stan Kasten, says he is committed to the type of organic system that he supervised in Atlanta. We shall see.

In order to excite L.A., the Dodgers took eye-popping short cuts. They took on so many fat contracts that their opening day payroll was $216 million. Even with that, they had only five pitchers they felt comfortable using by the time the NLCS started, and their offense quit working when confronted with playoff pitching.

That should not have been a surprise. The Dodgers' charge through the tapioca patch that was the National League West dulled their senses. They played six games against playoff teams after Aug. 11. They scored 12 runs in those games and went 1-5.

Health would help. They got 290 plate appearances from Matt Kemp, 336 from Hanley Ramirez. If Kemp is ready to roll in 2014, the Dodgers could deploy an outfield of Kemp, Carl Crawford and Yasiel Puig with outfielder Joc Pederson in reserve.

That would let them think about trading Andre Ethier for a pitcher, a couple of prospects, or a second baseman in the event they don't pick the option on 36-year-old Mark Ellis.

The agenda is also topped by a long-term deal for Kershaw, who becomes a free agent at the end of 2014 but won't abide any contract talks during the season.

And they have to decide if Don Mattingly is their manager, just as Mattingly must decide whether he'd be content to manage under a one-year option after leading the Dodgers to 92 victories and a Division Series title.

Mattingly refused to crack as the Dodgers spun their wheels for 31/2 months, even though he stood two or three losses away from getting fired. It was assumed he would be back if he won a playoff series. It is only an issue because of some bizarre decision-making, but all managers get sliced and diced in October. But if Mattingly only gets a deal for 2014, he will be managing under the sword again.

Brian Wilson also presents an interesting decision. He was a brilliant eighth-inning man as the rest of the bullpen receded. He might have pitched himself into closer's money again, somewhere else.

The Dodgers will be linked to far more activity than that. Lefty David Price, the reigning AL Cy Young winner, thinks Tampa Bay will trade him. Cincinnati is supposedly shopping Brandon Phillips, the 100-RBI second baseman.

They will be asked to surrender top-line kids such as pitchers Zach Lee, Chris Anderson, Julio Urias, Chris Reed, Onieki Garcia and Ross Stripling (Michael Wacha's Texas A&M teammate) and third baseman Corey Seager. They have avoided those lures, so far, and must continue to.

The NLCS should not obscure what the Dodgers did. They had the fourth-best attendance in their history, won at an epic clip for three months and got our full attention the way they used to. They made their big splash. Now it's time for small strokes.